OHMARDNEX

Open Hardware Monitor with Arduino and Nextion

Welcome to my little side project:

We're going to make a simple hardware and sensor monitoring tool that looks great as a built-in piece of hardware or as a gadget on your desktop!

Working principle:

Read the data from your Laptop/PC -> send it to an Arduino that simply forwards it to a Nextion display!

Good to know before starting:

1. The core app is based on Open Hardware Monitor - it needs admin rights to read some temps and info
2. The Arduino acts only as a serial data forwarder to the display
   • it can be connected via USB
   • directly to the motherboard usb pins
3. It works with the 2 famous displays: Itead's Nextion and it's original Chinese equivalent of TJC
   • currently the user interface is created for the following 2 models: NX4832K035_011, TJC4832K035_011

Naming convention:

• NX - Nextion
  
• 4832 - 480 x 320 resolution
  
• K - ENHANCED family
  
• 035 - 3,5inch screen size
  

Page layout / Features:

• Status1:
  • CPU temp/load
  • GPU temp/load
  • RAM usage
  • GPU RAM usage
• Status2:
  • HDD1 name/used space
  • HDD2 name/used space
  • GPU fan usage/RPM
  • CPU Power consumption
• Graph:
  • CPU & GPU temp - long-term representation
  • Settings:
  • Show/Hide either the CPU or GPU temp
    • Colorize CPU temp based on it's values
    • Change GPU color to a custom color
• Info
  • Minimal info about the motherboard, CPU, GPU, HDD1, HDD2, RAM
• Settings
  • Manually change the display's brightness
  • Change when the display goes to sleep
  • Restart the display
  • Show time and date

Other features:

• The executable requires admin priviledges, as the Open Hardware Monitor library needs to read the sensor data (don't worry about that) :)
• The display turns off after 1min, if it doesn't receive data
• To manually turn off the display, just press "Lock" on the main page
• Only 2 storage units are handled, it should be enough
• Send custom commands to the display (ex. sleep=1)

How to get started:

1. Flash the Arduino with SimpleSerialReader.ino
2. Flash the precompiled *.tft file for your display
3. Print the display bracket
4. Run the executable
   • Select the correct COM port
   • Select baud rate (usually 115200)
   • Choose update rate - works fine with 2000msec

Want to contribute?

Check out the resources and the project folder! Here are some tips for future improvements:

• Feature to minimize the app to the taskbar
• Feature to select which data has to be sent to the display
• Send custom commands to the display
• Add autostart with Windows! - I just started C#, the app can be improved in many ways
• Create different themes for the user interface - the display can have many themes, so it matches your surroundings!
• Extend the functionality - other external libraries can be included - such as fan control or RGB light control!